Christopher Dean Hopkins

The NCAA men's basketball tournament has included 64 teams every year since 1985, split into four quadrants and seeded 1-16. In all those years — in 135 tries — no 16 seed had ever beaten a top-seeded team.

Until the University of Maryland, Baltimore County beat the stuffing out of Virginia, the best team in the country, 74-54 on Friday night.

All of which is to say, if anyone claims they picked against Virginia in their tournament pool, you should feel comfortable not believing them.

Actor Robert Guillaume, who became the first black actor to win comedy Emmys for playing sharp-tongued butler turned lieutenant governor Benson DuBois on Soap and its spinoff, Benson, died Tuesday at age 89.

Seattle Mariners second-baseman Robinson Cano's home run off a changeup from the Chicago Cubs' Wade Davis won the Major League Baseball All-Star game Tuesday night in Miami, but that won't mean as much for the American League as in recent years.

The Cleveland Cavaliers came into the third game of the NBA Finals in a dispiriting but familiar position after two Golden State blowouts. Last year, that led to one of the most stunning comebacks in NBA history

That remained a possibility the entire game Wednesday night — until the closing minutes, when the Warriors ripped the Cavaliers' hearts out. Now Cleveland, which last year became the first team to recover from a 3-1 Finals deficit, faces historically long odds again.

Before Friday night's national semifinal game, the Mississippi State women's basketball coach gave an unusual motivational speech.

"I will not be scared," Vic Schaefer told his players. "There is no reason to be scared. You are one heck of a basketball team."

The tactic makes more sense in light of the opponent: 36-0 University of Connecticut, riding a 111-game winning streak that included a 60-point thrashing of Mississippi State in last year's Sweet 16. At the time, it was the worst defeat in tournament history.

It may be considered the national pastime, but in the first three World Baseball Classics the United States was far from dominant, with Japan winning twice and the Dominican Republic winning once. The Americans went 10-10 over the course of those tourneys and had never finished better than fourth — until this year.

But facing a Puerto Rican team they'd lost to less than a week ago, the United States left no room for doubt Wednesday, cruising to an 8-0 win and the World Baseball Classic title. It was the most lopsided title game so far in the four runs of the tournament.

President-elect Donald Trump, in a statement early this morning, announced his intention to nominate ExxonMobil chairman and CEO Rex Tillerson to lead the State Department and become the country's top diplomat.

The selection, which had been rumored for the past week, is unusual in a number of ways, and could face more scrutiny than usual when the Senate holds confirmation hearings.

Here are some key facts about the president-elect's nominee for the final major position to be filled in his Cabinet:

Soul singer Sharon Jones, lead singer of the group The Dap-Kings, has died, her publicist announced late Friday. She was 60.

She'd been fighting pancreatic cancer since 2013, when she took a break from touring to undergo extensive surgery and chemotherapy, Fresh Air wrote earlier this year. The cancer went into remission, but returned this year.

The NCAA announced Monday evening that it would relocate seven championship sporting events out of North Carolina during this school year, citing the state's HB2 law limiting civil rights protections for LGBT individuals, WUNC's Dave DeWitt reports.

The events moving out of state include first and second rounds of the Division I Men's Basketball Championship — part of the Road to the Final Four — originally slated to be in Greensboro, DeWitt reports.

Thirteen months after an Environmental Protection Agency mistake sent millions of gallons of bright orange wastewater into a Colorado river, the agency has declared the Gold King Mine and 47 other locations in the region Superfund sites, Colorado Public Radio reports.

Voters in the U.K. have decided to leave the European Union, a decision that has shocked Europe, shaken global markets and pushed Prime Minister David Cameron to announce his upcoming resignation.

The EU referendum vote was decisive — 52 percent to 48 percent in favor of dissolving the United Kingdom's 43-year membership in the European community. But Northern Ireland and Scotland voted in favor of remaining, raising the specter that the United Kingdom itself may break apart.

The father of two men who were among the occupiers of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and are now in jail, was himself arrested in Portland, Ore., Wednesday night.

Cliven Bundy, a Nevada rancher prominent in protests to end federal control of western lands, is being held in the Multnomah County Detention Center. His sons Ammon and Ryan were arrested Jan. 27 and are there as well.

Glenn Frey, 67, a founding member and guitarist of The Eagles, died on Monday in New York City of complications from rheumatoid arthritis, acute ulcerative colitis and pneumonia, according to a statement on the band's official website:

"The Frey family would like to thank everyone who joined Glenn to fight this fight and hoped and prayed for his recovery. Words can neither describe our sorrow, nor our love and respect for all that he has given to us, his family, the music community & millions of fans worldwide."

Clemson University, having its best football season in decades, will face off for the national title against perennial power Alabama later this month after both teams won semifinal games Thursday night.

Clemson was down a point at halftime to the University of Oklahoma, but scored three second-half touchdowns while keeping the Sooners from scoring, and won 31-17.

Alabama's defense did Clemson's one-half better, shutting out Michigan State as the Crimson Tide cruised to a 38-0 victory.

Updated at 12:10 p.m. ET

Paris is largely shut down Saturday, as investigators work to identify those behind Friday night's coordinated terror attacks, which killed 129 people and wounded more than 350. The Eiffel Tower and other public gathering spaces are closed.

Chinese police are clearing everyone within 2 miles of a fire in the port city of Tianjin over fears of chemical poisoning, days after a massive explosion that authorities now say has killed at least 104 people.

Police confirmed that highly toxic sodium cyanide was present near the site, raising fears that spread of the chemical could cause more casualties.

In a news conference early Monday morning, eurozone leaders announced that they would give Greece another bailout — as long as the government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras manages to implement a round of austerity measures in the coming days, says European Council President Donald Tusk.

The new deal estimates that Greece will need up to $96 billion in emergency funding in the next three years, Jake Cigainero reports for NPR. Lawmakers in Athens by Wednesday will need to pass pension overhauls and sales-tax increases that voters overwhelmingly rejected in a recent referendum.

The Golden State Warriors managed to dominate a stacked Western Conference all season long; with Wednesday night's 104-90 win over the Houston Rockets, they'll get a chance to finish the job in the NBA Finals.

The Warriors got a team-leading 26 points from star point guard Stephen Curry, who had struck his head in a fall in the previous game on Monday. Curry's shot wasn't as accurate as usual, but he made up for it with steals, rebounds and free throws. Harrison Barnes added 24 points for Golden State and Klay Thompson added 20.

For the second night in a row, people in Baltimore appear to have mostly heeded a citywide curfew.

But solidarity protests resulted in dozens of arrests in New York, and police used pepper spray on demonstrators near the Colorado State Capitol in Denver. Other large protests were held in Seattle, Houston, Washington, Boston and Minneapolis.